'The Queen of SOP'/ 'Sheng Nu De Dai Jia' Review

Name: The Queen of SOP/ Sheng Nu De Dai Jia

Year: 2012

Genre: Romance, Drama

Studio: Hunan TV

Episode Length: 1 Hour

Number of Episodes: 33

My Rating: 9 Hearts

Starring: Chen Qiao En, Zhang Han, Godfrey Gao

Show Premise: Lin Xiao Jie ( Chen Qiao En) is a low level employee at a large shopping center in Taiwan, dreaming of the day when she can travel to England to finish her education. Xiao Jie  is granted her wish to go to England, but only to help out on a photo-shoot for the Shopping Center. It’s in England that she meets Tang Jun for the first time. He runs down the thief that tried to steal her purse, and in thanks for all his help, they spend a day together taking in some of the sites.

When she returns to Taiwan, she tries to rent an apartment in England because she has decided to go there for herself this time. She meets a landlord online by the name of Tom, is none other than Tang Jun. Before she can leave though, she meets Gao Zi Qi (Godfrey Gao) the son of the CEO, as she’s working overtime.  As time goes on Zi Qi and Xiao Jie begin dating, but when it ends in disaster, Xiao Jie leaves the company and ends up working along-side Tang Jun.

Why I Chose This Show: I chose this show because I like Chen Qiao En. I have watched ‘Fated to Love You’ and ‘Easy Fortune Happy Life’, which she starred in and I respect her acting style. It’s been a while since a watched a new CDrama so I thought this was a perfect time to watch. Especially when I found out that Zhang Han and Godfrey Gao would be basically fighting over her. I love stories with two guys liking the same girl, they’re usually funny.

WARNING!!: Spoilers from this point on…don’t say I didn’t warn you

Characters and Actors:

Chen Qiao En a.k.a. Joe Chen as Lin Xiao Jie   This character surprised me in a good way. After Fated and Easy I was expecting a character similar to the one she played in those two shows. If you haven’t watched either, then FYI both of them were kinda whiny for a good portion of the shows, only finding strength and backbone after terrible things happened. THIS character, Lin Xiao Jie, however, was stronger, more decisive than I’ve seen in most Asian dramas. She seemed more like a real person to me, because her flaw wasn’t just letting people walk all over her. 
Her flaws in my opinion were running away and a straight-forward personality that could be grating at times.

It was really great seeing Qiao En stretch her acting wings. I would love to know if she had more roles like this one because it gets pretty tiring watching the “same” girl in different shows.

Zhang Han as Tang Jun  If you’ve been following CDramas for a while, you probably know that Zhang Han was the male lead for the Chinese version of Hana Yori Dango/ Meteor Garden/ Boys Over Flowers. He did a decent job in that show for a newbie, and I’ve been looking forward to how his skills would mature.

Tang Jun is the son of a Shopping Center CEO in Shanghai and should be learning business so that he can take over one day, but instead he spends his time in England only occasionally working on business. After he meets Xiao Jie, his life starts to change. In order to be closer to her he goes back to Shanghai hoping to be a part of her life. When he finds out that she’s with Zi Qi, he’s heartbroken but instead of taking it out on her and becoming a butt-hole, he maintains their online relationship under his English name Tom.

When there is a problem that she can’t solve Xiao Jie knows that she can turn to Tom for help, encouragement and ideas. I really liked this plot device. Tang Jun was able to keep his pride but was able to stay by her side during her difficult times.

Godfrey Gao as Gao Zi Qi  Never seen him as a lead in an Asian drama before. He played one of the pesky brothers in Momo Love and  I just found out he’s going to play Magnus Bane in the Mortal Instruments movies :P anyway… he’s tall, good-looking and basically everything, physically, that I hope a future boyfriend of mine will look like.

His acting was okay, but I think he could use some work on his nuances. There was a few times that his acting felt flat to me. 

This character was in a really emotionally difficult situation but there wasn’t much that told me that. I know that there are actors that make this their style, to be almost perfectly expressionless or feel that a character would behave that way, but I don’t think Zi Qi was one of them. Zi Qi was sweet and kind at his root and lacked affection. That’s why Xiao Jie was so perfect for him, but I feel like I missed out on some of the emotion of the finer points in the story because Godfrey couldn’t express the sort of loneliness and sadness that Zi Qi would be experiencing. So, even though he was supposed to be in love with Xiao Jie, I could never really believe it.

He wasn’t terrible in the role. The moment of truth when he discovered what his ex Bai Ji Qing had done with the missing engagement ring, was I think the moment that he showed the most passion, but I do see room for improvement. Hopefully he can get better in the future because skilled eye-candy is always welcome.

Coco Jiang as Bai Ji Qing  A new face to me, never seen this woman before, but boy is she pretty. She played the selfish beauty queen pretty well. There were just some moments where her acting felt a little flimsy, but I forgive her.

Bai Ji Qing is a super model, that everyone loves but she's been in a secret relationship with Gao Zi Qi for a long time. When he asks her to take their relationship public, she decides that she would rather be famous and loved by everyone else than have her populartiy fall and be loved best by him.

Zhang Meng as Zeng Chu Chu The secretary for Tang Lan and a childhood friend of Tang Jun, who has been in love with him since they were young.

Things get complicated when she realizes that Tang Jun is in love with Xiao Jie.

 
Du Ruo Xi as Tang Min The adopted daughter of Tang Lan and Tang Jun's sister. At times you can't figure out whose side she's on. Does she want to help Tang Jun or take the company for herself?

 


Bai Xue as Tang Lan  The CEO of a large shopping center and mother to Tang Jun and Tang Min.
She has worked hard for a long time to make her company a success but now wants to step down and make Tang Jun the new President.

Chemistry: I definitely felt the connection between Xiao Jie and Tang Jun. From the moment they met in England to the last scene of the drama, I was sure that they had a connection to each other. There was a steady thrum of affection as they moved through the phases of their relationship. I could see how these two could be friends and then see how that morphed into love. Very well done.

As I said before I couldn’t really get into the relationship between Xiao Jie and Zi Qi. I wanted to see them together because he is so handsome but that’s about it. They didn’t really fit together to me. The relationship between Ji Qing though, I got that one. They were both a little too selfish to be together but they did make sense together.

Setting/Wardrobe/: Pretty people in pretty clothes in pretty cities. Nothing too flashy but certainly up scale clothing.

Plot Predictability:

There were some of the familiar plot points that anyone that’s watched an Asian drama will know.

1. Attempted suicides with pills and booze just because the person you like doesn’t like you back.

2.The Ex getting in the middle of the new couples happiness, thinking that being mean to the new person will bring their lover back.

3. People plotting a company take over.

4. People working so hard they give themselves nose bleeds or pass out and need to be hospitalized.

But for those I found a few that I haven’t seen much of in Asian dramas. It was a refreshing change.

1. I’m happy that even though Xiao Jie was not an heiress, the screen writers did not use that to push the story. If I had to count the shows that I’ve watched where money was an issue between the couple, I would run out of fingers and toes. So kudos to the team for making a story that didn’t focus on money as the main obstacle to love.

2. I love this new recent wave to couples sticking together. Like King 2 Hearts and Sunshine Angel, this show allowed the main couple to stay together and use trust to build their relationship. That is usually the most annoying aspect about dramas, the point where a simple thing will break up the couple until the last episode. Meanwhile the tears and angst just keep coming with no one smart enough to ask complete questions… sorry… let me get back to the point. Tang Jun and Xiao Jie, once they decided to become a couple, they believed in each other and I really like that. I think that’s romantic.

3. Gao Zi Qi was the indecisive person in this drama. When he broke up with Bai Ji Qing I thought he was sure and determined to move on, but then with a few words from her, he was looking like he wanted to go back to her and their life in the shadows. Then he changed again when Xiao Jie cooked for him, and then again with Ji Qing cooked. It was a hot mess of confusion for him. Which girl was he really in love with? Was he just using Xiao Jie to make Ji Qing jealous? I got a headache from his flip-flopping. All that said, I was expecting him to be like that, because there was vulnerability about Zi Qi. He just wanted to be loved and love someone back, and it was sad that it couldn’t happen for him.

4. There wasn’t just alcohol abuse in this one, but food abuse as well. A lot of times there is only drinking in dramas when things don’t go your way, but SOP remembered that there are other ways that people drown their sorrows. One of the biggest is eating a large percentage of their weight in junk food. I appreciated that they made Ji Qing binge on pizza, fried chicken and other fatty foods when Zi Qi broke up with her. Honestly it’s really common in real life, but rare in dramas. Why is that?

5. There was just one other thing that I thought was refreshing to see, even as it frustrated me. It was Xiao Jie’s ability to separate her feelings of friendship and affection for Tang Jun, from her decision making abilities while they were at work. My soft side wished she was a bit nicer in the office, but I’m happy that she wasn’t the type to go around agreeing to things just because the person saying it was cute and a friend. Even when she was working with Tang Jun and Zi Qi at the same time, she didn’t just automatically side with either of them. I think it was good to see a character like this because, sometimes we need to be reminded to make choices based on what WE think not what everyone else is doing.

Who Would I Recommend This To: I think someone who is looking for a little freshness would like this one. There wasn’t too much that would turn off a newbie, but I think an experienced watcher would find this cute and enjoyable.

Re-watchability: I plan on watching this one again; I really enjoyed the chemistry between Qiao En and Zhang Han.

Boring/Fast-forward Parts: I will probably fast forward the parts with Godfrey and Coco, I didn’t really care about their problems or selfish tug of war.

Final Thoughts: This was really cute and romantic. I liked the fact that this drama filmed in all the actual locations. They didn’t try to fool us with a fake London set, and I’m grateful. Although there were some of the same old plot devices, I like the fact that there were enough new ones or twists on the old ones that the show isn’t melding into all the others that I’ve watched.

Places To Watch: Viki